Software+Service is all well and good, but Microsoft has long known that their unique packaging of online services with client-side software isn't a universal bromide for businesses looking to outsource significant parts of their IT portfolio. In fact, Redmond has been watching closely as many third-party providers have sprung up to provide hosting for some of their more popular, but complicated, server applications, with great success. So, while S+S has been the public answer to SaaS for the past year or two, the company has been quietly but fervently working on its own hosted versions of the Exchange and Sharepoint e-mail and collaboration packages.

Those hosted services have gone into open beta status today. The company has also announced new per-user licensing schemes to accompany them, although I haven't found the pricing available yet (the Microsoft online services page still points to third-party hosting services, whose pricing varies).

Part of the reason for the relative silence has been those third-party hosting services. Microsoft, while recognizing that the future revolves around hosting its own software, also understands that it stands to gain in the near-term from other companies purchasing its software to do the hosting themselves. Managing the transition to their own benefit while avoiding spooking those third-parties required some fancy footwork, I imagine, but the company appears to have pulled it off... rather than transitioning themselves to other packages, Exchange hosting services have continued to expand and invest in Exchange Server. It's hard to see how this will not ultimately come back to bite them, but it's possible that Microsoft may have identified a sweet spot for itself in the market and made some compact to avoid cannibalizing the rest. Or maybe it's just biding its time; hard to say.

In any event, go check out the beta sign-up and get an early preview (and, potentially, a front-row seat at any additional melt-downs as the company works out the kinks in their shiny new data centers).